[mitchmaine]

Just got off the phone with paul birdsall. He was saying how a block of towns downeast have gotten an article in the warrant of their individual town meetings declaring that growing and eating your own food is a god given right and not for sale to local or federal governments. Not sure about the particular wording. And maybe a little quixotic, spitting into the wind, so to speak. But when fuel prices climb, and the cost of trucking food from California forces food prices up, local food starts looking pretty good. Pendulums coming back. I can feel it. If the vote goes our way, maybe that story will hit the news, and some dy, food safety can be our business and not the feds.

[mitchmaine]

hey carl, my tongues in my cheek for sure, and i remember growing up knowing that vermont had more milk cows that people, and you strained your milk into galvanized cans and cooled the milk in spring water or cold water tanks. then came bulk tanks, and concrete floors, inspectors and do it or get out. maybe its just the pendulum finishing out its swing and due to head back soon, but we lost common sense somewhere along the way. anyway, it ain’t as common as it used to be.

[mitchmaine]

lobstermen around here juryrig when they can’t do a proper job.
there is yacht style and fisherman style. thats how i remember it.

mitch
“old fishermen never die, they just smell like that”

[mitchmaine]

scott,
street trees are good ones. the crown and number of leaves is directly relaated to how much sap and sugar you end up with. find a street tree somewhere out of the way and tap it and see if it runs. and boil it down on your stove at home. forget the old tales about wallpper and try it.
around here, a rig is something you cobble up, or add too. like truck and trailer, or a set of sap pans you welded up youselves. the girlfriend can be a rig too, but not sure just what that means. try some sugaring and let us know how it goes.

mitch

[mitchmaine]

thanks ed for sharing your pictures. great operation. nice family. we finished bricking the arch today. fifty degrees out, do you beleive that? rain tomorrow and back into the deepfreeze for another week or two. hope tomorrows rain knocks somemore of this snow down. try and pack roads again tomorrow. ben says its sugaring in kentucky already, best of luck. anybody sugaring in conn. or mass. yet? try and watch the season come north to us. forewarned, forearmed.
scott, pine pitch is turpentine, isn’t it. you have the weather for sure out there. freezing nights and thawing day. do you have any kind of a maple out there? sugarmaple are the best along with blackmaple, but red or white will do. even a boxelder is in the maple family and will make sweet sap. a little thinner but makes syrup in the end.

best wishes, mitch

[mitchmaine]

hey john, nice work.
did you ever get to meet (sir) edward martin? doubt there is any relation.
best wishes, mitch

[mitchmaine]

j-l, are the pictures of your sleds in “cabin fever” the same sleds and made of steel? and when did folks start welding steel runners? oh, and what part of your sled is a rave?
lots of pictures. maybe one without a body. thanks, mitch

[mitchmaine]

lost farmer, i sure would like to see some photos of your sleds. sound great. don’t recognize
#4 common sense or studebaker names. thanks, mitch

[mitchmaine]

thanks and yes to most of your observations on the scoot. its a simple tool for yarding logs longer distances to your wood yard. it doesn’t take too many loads to start thinking about efficiency, and yes i haven’t done anything about my ideas.
log brows are the typical method to load scoots but you should have some wood ahead of you before you put time and energy into something that doesn’t make you any money. log brows aren’t particularly mobil so you need a few depending on the size of the woodlot. you have to choose your spots wisely and sometimes you end up twitching wood away from the landing to the brow so you can load and go right back by the stump on your way to the yard. thats when you get thinking about alternative methods.

thanks simon, i’d sure like to see some photographs of your loader.

mitch

[mitchmaine]

Thanks for the great ideas. I thought they might be diconnected thoughts, but now I see them as one pretty good idea.
John, your idea about pulling with the team forwards is a great idea. Don’t know if you know, but carl will tell you when loading a big log with a team or single you have to unhook and put you horses out square away to the scoot ( off the trail in the brush) and pull the log on the scoot. It’s hard to drive horses and handle a peavey, but even if you can speak to your horses it’s a tough job. And if the log outweighs the scoot the whole mess can end up in the brushpile with the horses. So your idea started it working.
Then I saw carl and phils derrick or ginpole hanging over the scoot road and not part of the scoot (thanks ron), and eurica, I have a new idea for the self loading scoot.
You scoot up to the deck of logs twitched roadside, grab the tongs hooked to the set of blocks on the opposite side of the scoot, drop the neckyoke and hook the horses on and pull the log up and over the scoot dropping it in place on the load. Chain ‘er down, hook your horses and go. The scoot is still just a scoot with nothing added.
What do you think now? It’s your idea. Thanks mitch

[mitchmaine]

hey ed, buckets or tubing? looks like warm weather this week. noaa says 40 degrees on thursday, maybe. i think i’ll sort out the sugarhouse. bought a new arch and need to brick it in and ste up the stack. boil a little water in the pans to clean everything up. sure seems early but thats exactly what i said last year today.

best wishes and good sugaring, mitch

[mitchmaine]

hey old kat, i ran macs for a few years. i had a 10-10, a 60, an 81 and a 125. great saws. heavy rugged and dependable. then remington started making them and instantly they were no longer the same saw. then there were these saws made out of plastic by a vacuum cleaner co. electro-lux. oh, great! anyway they called them partner, johnsreds and husquvarna. so i tried the partner and wow. light weight fast and sharp. then i went back to my old mcculloghs and thats when you know the difference. so i bought a 162 husky and owned nothing else since. they had a 266 that was the best saw i ever owned. girlfriends come and girlfriends go and some stick in your mind for various reasons. that was the 266. a screaming saw but like all companies that have to give you a new model every two years, husky blew it and we lost that saw. tough break. but i still buy ’em. got a 375 and a 359 and two 262’s. love ’em.

mitch

[mitchmaine]

We speak a lot in terms about the “good people” along side the ‘bad government’ with clear distint borders. Simple to understand and deal with. We elect our leaders and law makers but of course agencies and boards are appointed and have layers of built in protection we have no say over.
we have a cheese (sheep) woman over to the eastward of us, other side of the Kennebec, who has started using the system against her competition. She seems to be turning all the other cheese makers in, to the “authorities” for various infractions whenever she pleases. And when one count doesn’t stick against the small cheese guy, she goes after their (cow) milk farmer- supplier for some other rule infraction. Sometimes with their dairies. So the problem starts to get systemic and the lines a little less defined and even if nothing “sticks”, other producers are weary and head shy, and we are giving the government teeth by our own actions. Maybe its cultural, and we are really all changing into beaurocrats and regulators of some sort without realizing it.

My dad used to remind me how hard it was for one man to force another mans hand into deep boiling water, but if you can get his hand into cool water and keep it there, and raise the temperature of the water one degree each day, before too long you’ve cooked him.

The Egyptians were successful in their efforts in their own country using pretty much passive efforts. Their own military showed great compassion for their own people, and never turned on them, protecting them as much as possible in a confrontation in front of the world. World news put its own new spin on tension daily to fit their own needs but in the end the people were successful. What comes out of it is yet to be seen, but that’s the future……..

We are protected by a constitution that guarantees us the right to confront the government if it gets too powerful. but We are so rich, so comfortable, I feel like my hand is in cool water, just not as cool as yesterday.

mitch

[mitchmaine]

hey mink,
i was going to thread the 1/4 inch flange on the end of the roll, then decided to weld a nut inside a drilled hole. then as i started to drill a drain hole in the bottom, bingo, 2+2 or whatever.
i bot that sleds for the iron years ago. and rebuilt them with oak. i stole the pole and rolls off it to rebuild a friends sleds planning on making replacements. so much for plans. at least the wood in the runners is still good. it’d be a pain to rebuild a set of sleds you rebuilt and never used. ha.

mitch

[mitchmaine]

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Took a page from this guys book and made up the rolls and pole for this set of bobs today out of steel. The rolls are 2×3 square tube bolted in with grade 8 three quarter x 5 inch bolts. Clamped an old plow pole in place. The feather bolts are 2” angle x 18.” Used steel, some new, have about $75. in it. Feels pretty solid, and it’ll never break or rot. But the proof of the pudding’s in the eatin”. Try and make a body and see how it goes before the snows gone. 50/50 chance.
mitch

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